Our Mission

Our mission at SIC is to provide a highly professional, evidence-based service. We look at the patient as an individual, the demands of their lifestyle, profession, sport and sporting goals.

An integral part of the treatment is education of the patient. If our client understands the nature of his/her injury, he/she is empowered to self-manage. This, coupled with correction of equipment (shoes, etc.), training schedules and imbalances should also assist in preventing a recurring injury or other injuries.

Through our involvement with various UCT and school teams and intensive continued professional development (both SASP accredited courses, weekly clinical sessions and informal self-study), we keep ourselves at the forefront of current physiotherapy and medical practice and treat and manage accordingly.

We charge medical aid rates and submit directly to most medical aids. We have card facilities too.

We also make use of the UCT Accidental Supplementary Healthy fund, a special dispensation/fund for full-time UCT students with no medical insurance who are accidentally injured whilst participating in UCT organised sport.

What we do

The SIC team manages athletes of all levels, from the ‘weekend warrior’ to those in a more professional setting. Treatment is, however, not limited to sports injuries or those participating in a sporting environment.

The difference between physio and biokinetics

A biokineticist is a specialised exercise therapist who works alongside allied health and medical practitioners and is recognised by and registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa.

We aim to improve a person’s quality of life and enhance current performance through individualised exercise prescription in both clinical pathology (acute and chronic) and disease.

Physiotherapy is also concerned with rehabilitation but involves far more “hands on” work.

What to expect

During your first 45-minute physiotherapy session you can expect:

An assessment, beginning with detailed questions to pinpoint the problem to assess the extent of the injury. This will be followed by a physical assessment, which will include postural, biomechanical, and movement analysis, and a hands-on assessment to help isolate the final diagnosis.

Treatments are individualised and may constitute: soft tissue work, joint mobilisation, dry needling, and electrotherapy, depending on the diagnosis.

A home exercise programme specific to your injury will be given to you. We keep these short and succinct to ensure compliance.

Rehabilitation will then continue with a biokineticist who will assess the for-problem areas as well as prescribe an exercise programme to address general fitness. This prevents injury reoccurrence or different injuries due to compensation for the injury.

Follow-up sessions are 45 minutes and will include a brief follow-up assessment to identify the level of improvement, treatment, need for further investigations, a referral to another practitioner and a progression of the exercise programme.

During your first 45-minute biokinetics session you can expect:

An assessment including the history of the injury.

An assessment of specific muscles: length and strength.

A biomechanical assessment of sports-specific and other functional movements.

An individualised exercise programme targeted at correcting the identified imbalances.

Follow-up sessions are 45-minutes and will become more sport-specific (for example: a rugby player with an ankle sprain requires different exercises to a dancer with a similar injury).